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Thursday, 30 April 2015

Nepal
faces larger and more deadly earthquakes, even after the
magnitude-7.8 temblor that killed more than 4,000 people on Saturday
(April 25).

Earthquake
experts say Saturday's Nepalearthquake did
not release all of the pent-up seismic pressure in the region near
Kathmandu. According to GPS monitoring and geologic studies, some 33
to 50 feet (10 to 15 meters) of motion may need to be released, said
Eric Kirby, a geologist at Oregon State University. The earth jumped
by about 10 feet (3 m) during the devastating April 25 quake, the
U.S. Geological Survey reported.

"The
earthquakes in this region can be much, much larger," said
Walter Szeliga, a geophysicist at Central Washington University.

Seismologists
have extensively studied the possibility of damaging earthquakes in
the central Himalayas. Through analyzing written histories,
looking for clues from damaged buildings and digging along faults,
researchers know of several damaging earthquakes in the past, but not
their precise size. [See
Photos of This Millennium's Destructive Earthquakes]

Nepal
was overdue for a major earthquake, said Marin Clark, a geophysicist
at the University of Michigan. "It has been a long time since
the last big rupture, so this is not unexpected," Clark said.

One
of the region's most devastating recent quakes occurred in 1934, when
a magnitude-8.2 earthquake killed over 8,500 people in Kathmandu.
Before then, the last time such animmense
quake struck Kathmandu was
on July 7, 1255. That quake killed about 30 percent of the
population. The region west of Kathmandu has been seismically quiet
since June 6, 1505, when a great earthquake toppled buildings from
Tibet to India.

A
woman cries as she waits near a collapsed house where her son is
trapped, as rescue efforts go on …

Crash
zone

Nepal
is one of the world's most earthquake-prone regions because it lies
at the head-on collision between two tectonic plates. India is
slamming into Asia, and neither wants to give. Both India and Asia
are continental crust, of the same average density. So instead of one
plate sinking beneath the other, such as is happening at the
ocean-continent plate collision offshore South America, the Earth's
crust crumples. Slices of India peel off and slowly squeeze under
Asia, while Asia is mashed upward, forming the Himalayas.

India
and Asia collide at
about eight-tenths of an inch (2 centimeters) per year. Most of that
energy is loaded onto earthquake faults as elastic strain because the
faults are stuck together. Loading a fault is like squeezing a
spring; an earthquake releases the built-up energy similar to an
uncoiling spring.

Scientists
think earthquakes that are magnitude 7.8 in size can't release all of
the strain between India and Asia. Instead, history suggests most of
the stored energy gets uncorked as earthquakes that are magnitude 8
or greater, according to geologic studies. It would take scores of
magnitude-7 quakes to accommodate all of the plate motion, but only a
handful of midsize, magnitude-8 quakes, or one magnitude 9. (The
energy released by a quake increases by a factor of 30 with each
additional point in magnitude.) [Video:
What Does Earthquake 'Magnitude' Mean?]

"It
seems likely that the amount of slip in this earthquake probably
didn't make up for the complete deficit," Kirby said.

The April
25 earthquake struck
on one of the many thrust faults that mark the boundary between the
two plates. Thrust faults are the most terrifying of all faults
because they lie at an angle. This shallow angle means a massive part
of the Earth's crust can lurch during an earthquake. Steeper faults
quickly grow too warm and soft to break; as rocks get deeper, they
flow like putty, Szeliga said. During the Nepal temblor, a piece of
crust roughly 75 miles (120 kilometers) long and 37 miles (60 km)
wide jogged 10 feet (3 m) to the south. The fault angled only 10
degrees from the surface, and the quake was only 9 miles (14 km)
deep.

"This
one was relatively shallow, which intensifies the surface shaking,"
Clark said.

From
seismic readings, many scientists suspect the fault did not break all
the way to the surface, like the
1994 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles.
That's another indication that the earthquake did not unleash all of
the stored strain in the region, Kirby said. The seismic instruments
can detect where the strongest motion occurred on the fault.

However,
even without a surface trace, GPS instruments and InSAR (radar from
satellites) will provide precise tracking of how the ground shifted
during the earthquake, Szeliga said. The data will help ground-truth
scientist's models of Himalayan tectonics.

"Now's
the chance to see who made predictions that were even remotely
testable, and if they stand up," Szeliga said.

An
emergency has been declared across parts of the Altai region after
major flooding caused by the spring thaw of snow. Residents have been
evacuated from some areas as rivers threaten to burst their banks,
with more than 250 residential buildings affected.

Authorities
have set up 34 temporary housing shelters for people forced to move
out, and at least 1,150 gardens and farming plots are under water. In
the town of Zarinsk, students from the state university are assisting
rescue workers while volunteers are being sought to help shore up a
dam on the brink of bursting.

Photographs
from the region show roads and fields flooded and homes under water.

By
yesterday afternoon 27 settlements across 16 municipal areas where
flooded by the melting snow. Zarinsk, which has a population of about
48,000 people, is among the worst affected residential area, with the
Chumysh River having swelled by 19cm over the past day.

By
8am local time on Monday 173 buildings and 306 gardens and farming
plots were under water and 166 people, including 27 children, were
evacuated. However it is thought the situation will worsen,
particularly if the dam breaks.

Melting
snow causes spring floods across Altai Picture: AltaPress

Sergey
Ivanov, head of the emergency department at Zarinsk City council,
said: The work to reinforce the dam and Chumysh basin were carried
out but it didn’t allow to keep control of the situation because
the water is spreading massively. It was simply impossible to stop
it'.

A
council statement added: 'An evacuation of the residents of the
Lesokombinat district of Zarinsk has been launched, given the danger
of the dam bursting.

'Volunteers
are kindly requested to come and help to enforce the dam. Students of
Altai State University are arriving to the city to assist in the
recovery after the emergency situation in Zarinsk'.

The
local branch of the Emergencies Ministry said that almost 400 people
in 163 vehicles have been deployed to assist across the Altai region.

Riots,
looting and destruction - peaceful protests in Baltimore turned ugly
and that's the only side the mainstream media wants you to hear.
Broken windows are more important than broken spine of Freddie Gray,
whose murder in custody caused public outrage

A
powerful Kelvin Wave continued to ripple through the near-surface
waters of the Equatorial Pacific this week — heightening sea
surface temperatures, strengthening an ongoing El Nino, and pushing a
wave of oceanic heat back into a human-warmed atmosphere that is
hotter now than at any time in modern human reckoning.

High
temperature anomalies in the Kelvin Wave plug have spread out across
the ocean surface. Readings in the range of +1 to +2 C above average
stretch along surface waters all the way from the Date Line through
120 West Longitude. East of the 120 line, surface waters have now hit
readings of 2 to 4 degrees Celsius above average. And lurking just
below the surface along thousands of miles of ocean is a dense zone
of 5-6 degree above average water. A zone of extreme heat at the
heart of the current intense Kelvin Wave:

Heat
that could well make 2015 yet another worsening of the human warming
and extreme weather twilight zone we now find ourselves in.

Pushing
into Moderate El Nino Range

According
to NOAA’s
weekly El Nino report,
sea surface temperatures in the critical Nino 3.4 region hit a range
of 1 degree C above average last week. A jump from the previous
week’s measure of +0.7 C and a new push toward moderately strong El
Nino levels off the back of the current warm Kelvin Wave. Atmospheric
teleconnections that are signatures of a moderate El Nino also began
to emerge over past weeks — with a strengthening of the subtropical
Jet and related storm track setting off powerful tornadoes,
thunderstorms and heavy rain events in states bordering the Gulf of
Mexico over the past ten days.

Heat
content from the current Kelvin Wave is enough to continue to keep
Equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatures in present ranges or to
push for further warming over at least the next 1-2 months. A set of
factors that will almost certainly lock near moderate El Nino
conditions in through Summer and general El Nino conditions through
early Autumn. The result is that the extra heat bleed off the Pacific
Ocean will combine with the impressive human forcing to generate a
high risk that 2015 atmospheric temperatures will beat out all-time
record highs set in 2014.

Model
Runs Still Showing Potential for Super El Nino

(Unweighted
model ensemble runs show the current El Nino peaking out at extreme
intensity. Long range model runs can be quite uncertain, but these
are very high values. Image source: NOAA
Seasonal and Monthly SST Anomalies.)

NOAA
model runs also show a potential for El Nino strengthening through
the end of 2015. Probability weighted CFS model ensembles (PDF) point
toward a seasonal anomaly for Nino 3.4 in the range of 1998 Super El
Nino values at 2.1 degrees Celsius above average by the end of 2015.
Mean model runs (non-weighted) push the long range forecast heat
values even higher at 2.6 C above seasonal averages or 2.75 C above
monthly averages.

These
unweighted long range forecasts are well outside the strength of even
the monster event of nearly two decades ago. An new super El Nino
that would have very serious consequences for global temperatures and
result in far-reaching climate impacts should it emerge. Atmospheric
temperatures that are now in the range of +0.7 C above 20th Century
averages and +0.9 C above 1880s values could well push into a new
range at +0.8 C and +1 C, or higher, respectively.

(Long
range models show Equatorial Pacific has potential to hit near Super
El Nino status by late 2015. At this time, such model runs are low
certainty. Image source: NOAA
Seasonal and Monthly SST Anomalies.)

Cranking
up the Human Hothouse

Entering
the range of 1-2 C above 1880s values is a zone of heat anomaly that
will amplify already apparent ice sheet melt, sea level rise,
droughts, wildfires, water stress, and ocean health impacts. At
temperatures around +1.5 C we begin to enter a period of strong
glacial outflows, weather instability, geophysical changes, and
record related storm events in a ‘Storms
of My Grandchildren‘
type scenario. At +2 C these very dangerous impacts will likely be in
full swing.

It
is worth noting that it took 10,000 years to warm the world 4 degrees
Celsius at the end of the last ice age. Under current human fossil
fuel burning scenarios, it is likely that we reach half that
threshold in just 150 to 170 years — from 1880 to 2030-2050. A
rapid reduction in fossil fuel emissions along a progression to a net
carbon negative human society over the next few decades is absolutely
necessary to prevent these outcomes. And while model forecasts
indicating the potential for a Super El Nino type event for late 2015
may be somewhat uncertain, there is a much higher certainty that very
dangerous climate impacts starting at the current level of human
warming will ramp up here on out — with the 1.5 C threshold looking
very bad and the 2.0 C threshold looking terrible.

Satellites
often detect fires in North Korea in April. As snow retreats in the
spring, many farmers use fire to clear away last year’s crop debris
and to fertilize the soil for the coming season. Such fires generally
remain small and produce only modest amounts of smoke. But sometimes
they escape the control of their handlers and push into forests on
the country’s mountainous terrain.

As
in several
recent years, control
was lost in April 2015. When the Moderate
Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)
on Terra passed
over North Korea on April 27, 2015, the satellite observed several
large fires burning in the eastern part of the country. Actively
burning areas, detected by the thermal
bands of
MODIS, are outlined in red. Fields and grasslands, mainly in coastal
plains and river valleys, appear light brown. Forests at lower
elevations appear green; at higher elevations, forests are still
brown at this time of year.

Many
of the larger, smokier fires appear to be burning in forested
highlands near cultivated river valleys. MODIS first began to detect
the fires in significant numbers on April
23. By
April 27, the number of fires had increased and many had grown
significantly smokier. MODIS also observed a sizable plume drifting
east over northern Japan.

I
did a Google check on the world media and how they are covering this.
NOTHING from CNN and both the BBC and AP had brief pieces quoting
"Ukrainian authorities". The fires are put out and, of
course there's no radiation!!

Smoke
from burning forests in the Chernobyl exclusion zone is capable of
spreading contaminants across great distances, even after the fire
has been stopped, ecology experts told RT.

The
forest fire near the crippled Chernobyl nuclear power plant started
on Tuesday and triggered an emergency alert, with police and National
Guard mobilized to bring the flames under control.

By
Wednesday, the country's Emergency Ministry, as well as the prime
minister, who went to the affected area, said the spread of the fire
had been stopped and firefighters were containing the remaining
flames. Later on Wednesday, Ukrainian TV reported the flames in areas
containing radioactive waste have been put out. New hot spots were
discovered, but they are outside the exclusion zone.

The
fire occurred within 30 kilometers of the Chernobyl power plant,
inside the exclusion zone which was abandoned and cordoned off almost
30 years ago. In 1986, an explosion and fire in Chernobyl's Reactor 4
caused a release of radioactive particles into the air, which
contaminated the surrounding area and caused an increase in radiation
levels in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and across Europe. It was the
worst ever nuclear disaster in terms of casualties and clean-up
costs. The crippled reactor itself was sealed under a sarcophagus of
reinforced concrete

Although
the sarcophagus remains untouched by the fire, decades-old
contaminants could still be released and travel far and wide, borne
aloft by the smoke, nuclear safety expert John H. Large told RT:

"Brush
fires and forest fires were the greatest concern in terms of the
means by which you can disperse a secondary radiological impact from
the original dissipation that occurred in 1986," he said.

John
went to Chernobyl in 2006 to assess the situation there and spoke to
dozens of scientists working on containing the contamination.

"In
the exclusion zone and further away you have an area that has been
abandoned for farming, abandoned for man management," John says.
"That means you've got lots of brush and young wood growing out
of control, and that means there's a big fuel load to have a fire."

He
says the high temperatures and volumes of smoke produced in a forest
fire can take contaminants hundreds of kilometers away from the
exclusion zone: "Radiation really doesn't respect any
international boundaries."

Forest
fires have happened in the area before, but have never been so
serious, Timothy Mousseau, biology professor at the University of
South Carolina, told RT:

"Previous
forest fires had re-released about eight percent of the radiation
from the original catastrophe. The fire that we're seeing today seems
to be on a much larger scale, and so we could see a re-dispersion of
a very significant component of the original radiation."

Another
problem is that as the trees that have absorbed contaminants burn up
and release smoke, this turns radioactive particles into a much more
dangerous form than if they simply lie in the ground.

"Internal
radiation from inhalation - in other words, if you inhale something
radioactive and it gets inside you - is very much more dangerous than
just the background radiation that comes off the ground," says
Christopher Busby, the scientific secretary of the European Committee
on Radiation Risks.

French
nuclear safety research institution IRSN created this simulation
video, modelling the spread of caesium-137 from the 1986 Chernobyl
disaster.

Christopher
Busby commented on how far radioactive particles can potentially
spread: "After Chernobyl itself, they ended up in the atmosphere
and they went right across the Baltic States and into Finland, and
over Sweden, and then to the United Kingdom, where they caused
significant increases in cancer."

However,
other scientists believe the danger is minimal, because instead of
being absorbed from the ground into the vegetation, contaminants
actually sank deeper: "30 years on, the radiation in the soil is
not on the surface, it has sunk down. New plants have grown on the
spot, which contain very small doses of radiation," Leonid
Bolshov, from the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute for safe
atomic energy development, told RIA Novosti.

He
said systems are in place to monitor radioactivity in the area: "When
there were [forest] fires in 2010, our institute created a special
method of determining the impact of the fires. Back then, we found no
danger. The sensors that have been placed everywhere, including the
Chernobyl zone, are not supposed to react - and they are not
reacting. We checked the sensor in Pripyat today; its readings have
been the same for the past two days." Pripyat is the abandoned
town closest to the Chernobyl power plant.

In
this video during the Baltimore uprising journalists are repeatedly
targeted by the police department and shot with less lethal
munitions. Clearly journalists do not pose a threat in any way with
cameras that are visible to the police so why are they getting
targeted? In Baltimore journalists are not only attacked by
protesters but also have to worry about police officers who target
them now.A Russian view of things

Translated
from Russian by Kristina RusThe
American dream is dying in BaltimoreRussian
historian and sociologist Andrei Fursov recalls that in the U.S. the
sort of clashes we see in Baltimore are not isolated.Our
press doesn't write at all about some of the incidents of this
nature, considering them minor internal issues. But, in my opinion,
there is no doubt that in the U.S. there is increasing social tension
and polarization of society. We are talking about a stand-off —
class in form and racial in content.America
has long passed the peak of its development, and since the
mid-1970's, figuratively speaking, "is moving to the sidelines
of history." Another thing is that the US have accumulated a lot
of social "fat," their multinational companies are robbing
the whole world. And in the 1990's they "cleaned up" the
former socialist countries very thoroughly, primarily Russia. But
fortune doesn't give anything forever, and since 2007-2008 their
crisis is rapidly developing. The problem with USA is that they
consume 3-4 times more goods and services than they produce. Such
imbalance must come to an end.

Clearly,
we are seeing a deterioration of the average American income.
According to sociological studies, the quality of life today
corresponds to the period of the late 1950's – early
1960's.

First
under distress are the African Americans and Hispanic citizens.
Naturally, this causes a protest, increasing discontent. One
well-known American sociologist in a personal conversation with me
(during our perestroika) said that the U.S. will go through it's own
perestroika [reformatting - KR] no later than 2020. And since it will
be based on race relations, it can be very bloody. What we see in
America is a systemic crisis of the US as the core of the capitalist
system. And it will only deepen.

The
ethnic balance of the United States is actively changing (considering
migration flows and a higher rate of childbirth among African
Americans and Hispanics). In some southern States the Hispanics are
pushing the whites [in numbers]. The same thing happens with black
people. However, the American elite is concerned not only with the
riots at the bottom of the social pyramid, but the fact that they
will elevate the non-white elites to the top. And this will mean
major changes in the structure of the ruling class.Of
course the current black politicians are the "black servants"
of the white elites. When some point to Obama or Condoleezza Rice as
confirmation of the thesis that America is "a country of equal
opportunities", I say: American elite very carefully selects
that portion of the non-white population, which according to the
specifics of their psycho-type can work in the interests of the white
elite. Obama, judging by his reaction to the clashes in Ferguson and
Baltimore, takes the position of his class. And no matter what color
his skin is.Either
way, we see that the much-vaunted melting pot has overheated and is
no longer functioning. Neither Hispanic nor African-Americans don't
want to integrate into the world of the "American dream".
Because today it has been destroyed.

It
should be noted that the "American dream" is part of the
era of prosperity of capitalism, which is associated not with its
internal logic, but with confrontation with the Soviet Union and the
socialist camp. From 1945 to the late 1980's, the US (and Western
Europe) were forced to "feed" their middle and working
class in order to make the American model attractive in their
eyes. Because
the Soviet Union was nearby, were the idea of social equality was
embodied in the most complete form. 1960
to 1970 in the US was not capitalism, but a necessary deviation
from it. An attempt to simulate socialism to appease the middle and
the working classes. And when the USSR collapsed, capitalism returned
to a state of the "iron heel", in which it functioned in
the late 19th – early 20th century.

Therefore,
the US has very serious trials ahead. Likely they will try to get out
of this difficult situation through the path of war. As it has
already happened in the 193o's of the 20th century.

The
"export of chaos" means channeling their problems
to the outside world. We are told about the successes of the "New
deal" of Roosevelt in the 1930's. In my opinion, these
historians "bring the shadow to the fence". Actually the
"New deal" has only created new problems. Not accidentally
in the mid-1930s Roosevelt got a very serious opponent in the person
of the Governor of Louisiana, Huey Long, who became the prototype of
Willie Stark, the hero of the novel "All the king's men" by
Robert Penn Warren. This character created a society of property
redistribution across America. But at the end of the book, of course,
he was killed by a "lone wolf" (as later in real life -
John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther king).

In
the late 1930's, the US was faced with a choice - either major social
reforms that encroach on the capitalist class, or a
world war. We know which option they chose. Incidentally, it is
highly symbolic that Franklin Delano Roosevelt began to use this
expression six months before Hitler.

Today
the U.S. is in the same situation. In terms of nuclear deterrence
unleashing WWIII is very unlikely. Rather, the White house is trying
to achieve a "global chaos". By the way, in the late 1980's
the US was on the verge of collapse, saved only by the collapse of
the USSR. On October 19, 1987 Dow Jones fell by 22.3%. It was an
absolute record. And Alan Greenspan, who was then called to lead the
Fed, said: "We will only be saved by a miracle."

This
"miracle" was the destruction of the USSR. If this has not
happened, the US would come on hard times. And to cope with
us militarily was completely impossible.

Of
course, unlike Russia of the Yeltsin era it is impossible to topple
us by force today. Another thing is to create a zone of instability
around the perimeter of our borders, it is possible to support the
Nazis in Ukraine, or send radical Islamists to Central Asia, that is,
to contain the Russian Federation in every way. America is in a very
difficult position. But this is the hole that they dug
themselves.One
interesting American scholar Chalmers Johnson, wrote a book
"Blowback" in 2000, which predicted that in the first half
of this century the U.S. will get a blowback for their policy in Asia
in the second half of the twentieth century. First, this study did
not receive much attention, but after September 11, the book was
reprinted. As Chalmers Johnson wrote two more parts of the trilogy
("the Sorrow of Empire and "Nemesis"). In
fact, he explicitly showed the collapse of the American Empire. It
makes sense to listen to the forecasts of this person. Because he is
not just a publicist, but came from the CIA, a specialist in the
fight against the guerrilla movement in South-East Asia and also an
expert in Japan.In
his opinion, in the 1990's under Clinton, the US ceased to be a
Republic and turned into a military empire. And it is crumbling
before our eyes. This is a huge dying "dinosaur", but his
"seizures" can be very dangerous for the world. Especially
considering the crisis of the elites in the USA.There
are no real contenders for the presidency, only the "familiar
faces" – representatives of the ruling clans and dynasties.
Grandma Clinton, unimpressive Jeb Bush (the brother of the 43rd
U.S. President George W. Bush) and Mitt Romney. On the one hand, the
crisis of the elites in the United States plays into our hands –
these people can make mistakes. But on the other hand — not very
adequate people can start trouble. Therefore, we need to "keep
our powder dry", and to live by the principle: "We
are peaceful people, but our battleship is standing by".This arsehole calls himself a journalist

This Brother Nick Mosby broke it down for Fox News...but they didn't want to hear it....ALL THEY WANT TO TALK ABOUT IS THE LIQUOR STORE BEING LOOTED..SMH...but he SHUT EM DOWN though. http://www.gofundme.com/lzy3k4. Please support
Posted by Ricky Kelly on Monday, 27 April 2015